Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 22:11:34 -0700
Reply-To: David L Cassell <davidlcassell@MSN.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: David L Cassell <davidlcassell@MSN.COM>
Subject: Re: SAS Graph vs. R (was: Re: Heretical Question Alternatives to
SAS)
In-Reply-To: <60765.150.142.237.208.1180109143.squirrel@webmail.albany.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
msz03@albany.edu replied:
>
>Hi...I think SAS/Graph versus R falls in the "whatever floats your boat"
>category. I'll agree
I agree.
If you like SAS/GRAPH, use it to produce amazing graphs.
If you like R, use it to produce amazing graphs.
Just don't insist that one graphics language is optimal, because
people have been fighting that battle since the 1970's.
For some idea of the really cool stuff you can do with SAS/GRAPH, check
out the SUGI proceedings for papers by Perry Watts. She had one poster
that had SAS/GRAPH images that I would not have attempted to create
in something as flexible and graphically-oriented as PostScript.
You can do just as much in R, which started from a more natural
include-graphics-from-the-start origin. But they're different, with
different syntax and different systemata and different .. well, everything.
>with the posting by Joe Whitehurst in that I'll spend my time getting
>better with SAS. If you are
>looking for some neat examples of what's possible if you invest some time
>with SAS/Graph, take a
>look at Robert Allison's wonderful web site...
>
>http://robslink.com/SAS/Home.htm
>
>PS I searched the SAS-L archives to see how often "heretical" shows up.
>It's there a lot more
>than I expected (many more times than "heretic"). This was contained in a
>1999 posting...
>
>"Thousands of statisticians suffered at the hands of the Spanish
>Inquisition for their heretical
>belief in the Central Limit Theorem, and many were burnt at the stake for
>the devilish tricks they
>played with ordinary least squares."
Unlikely to be true. This sounds like the sort of dopey stuff that
*I* would say. :-) :-) [This was Tim Churches dinging someone
for flying off the handle, wasn't it?]
Although de Moivre did write an amazing proof that was basically a
special case of the CLT back in the 1700s, it was pretty much ignored
by the math/stat community until my old buddy Laplace resurrected
it in the early 1800's at which point the Spanish Inquisition was nearly
over. So I think statisticians survived the Spanish Inquisition. Now
high school, that's a different matter. :-)
>And remember...NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Was anyone ever
>burnt for maximum likelihood?
>
>--
>Mike Zdeb
We're not telling. Remember, our greatest weapon is surprise.
Surprise and fear...
David
--
David L. Cassell
mathematical statistician
Design Pathways
3115 NW Norwood Pl.
Corvallis OR 97330
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